Nu Bowled Over By Rush For Tickets

But Supplies Are Tight For Game In Pasadena

It was late in the third quarter of Saturday's Ohio State-Michigan football game when armchair quarterback Ed Paquette started calling audibles.

Paquette, a defensive end for Northwestern University in the mid-1960s, ran a circle route from his TV to the nearest phone and placed the first of several calls to a Des Plaines company handling the Wildcats' bowl tour package for alumni. It was looking more and more that those thousands of preprinted brochures to the Florida Citrus Bowl wouldn't be needed after all, recounted Paquette, who is executive director of the Northwestern Alumni Association. But don't do anything yet, he told the tour director.

Minutes slowly ticked off the game clock when, late in the fourth quarter, Paquette made his decision:

"I grabbed the phone and gave the order that our mailing to the Rose Bowl be sent to 94,000 alumni across the nation," he recalled Monday in the association's ornate lakefront offices in Evanston, which were swarmed with alumni as well as fair-weather fans seeking entree to Pasadena, Calif. Agents working for the Alumni Holidays tour agency called out numbers as the assembled fans, much like customers waiting their turn to buy bagels in a deli, scanned their tickets.

On Sunday afternoon, a full day before the glossy brochure and order form would start arriving in mailboxes, more than 100 people converged on the stately mansion that serves as the alumni center. They wanted to plunk down more than $1,500 each to travel to California over the New Year's holiday, where they would have the chance to scream, "Go U Northwestern!" at the big game.

Who was it, anyway, who said Monet was the hottest ticket in town?

Meanwhile, orders for the five-night alumni package were received from as far away as Japan, according to officials, who predicted that the association's 3,000 ticket packages--which include airfare, hotels, a tailgate pep rally and other festivities--would be sold out in a couple of days, tops.

"The last time the Cats went to the Rose Bowl (in 1949), I skipped it because medical school was keeping me very busy," Dr. Eliot Foltz, who received his bachelor's degree from NU in 1935, said Monday as he waited his turn to sign up for the trip. "It didn't bother me then because I thought I'd have another chance to go in a year or two.

"This time, nothing's stopping me," declared Foltz, of Winnetka, who met his future wife at the university and was a professor at NU's medical school for many years.

Another die-hard fan waiting in line was Bobette Janus of Deerfield who, as an education major in the 1950s, recalled a drive to toss Northwestern out of the Big Ten because, as she stated delicately, "we didn't have a habit of winning. . . . There even was an effort to change the Wildcat name to the Purple Haze because our teams just didn't compare to the other schools."

Of the more than 100,000 tickets to the Rose Bowl, Northwestern's allotment of 21,904 was expected to arrive Tuesday on campus, said Krista Fortman, director of ticket operations. Priority is being given to current season-ticket holders, who have until Friday to purchase two of the $80 tickets for every season ticket they hold. Students, faculty as well as donors to the university's Wildcat Fund and NU Gridiron Network also will have an early option to purchase tickets, Fortman said.

"There's no guarantee, but we feel we can take care of everybody," said Fortman, adding that applicants will be notified by Monday. She urged people to call the NU Bowl hot line at 708-467-1300. Ticket sales will continue until Dec. 11 or until all tickets are gone.

The Big Ten's share of tickets, which is determined by contract, is traditionally smaller than the Pac-10's because demand for seats is naturally greater among fans in Western states. Those fans, of course, tend to be Pac-10 supporters.

With Rose Bowl tickets expected to be offered for sale by myriad sources--from ticket brokers to newspaper ads to outfits advertising on the Internet's World Wide Web--a familiar piece of advice is being offered: Buyer beware.

"It was only two years ago that fans from Wisconsin who didn't buy their tickets from the university ended up with a hotel room in Pasadena but no tickets," Paquette said. "I'm not saying stay away from the unofficial tour groups, but people should do all they can to ensure they have the right and appropriate ticket."

That can be as easy as making sure the tickets you buy contain the Rose Bowl hologram and as difficult as, well, not being exactly sure you've purchased the real McCoy. Another word of advice: If the price seems too good, it probably is.

Badger fans were estimated to have lost more than $600,000 to unscrupulous operators, according to the Wisconsin attorney general's office. About $500,000 in reimbursements were eventually collected as the result of litigation.